Page 30 of Light Magic

She nodded. “With my parents, before they died. Once every couple of months, they liked to take us out to see the world, to know what was happening out there, and how technology was advancing.”

“Did you like those outings?”

“Oh, yeah. We’ve been to New York City, Los Angeles, Rome, London, Sydney, Hong Kong … but my favorite was Paris.”

I felt a little jealous of her. I was almost four years her senior and I hadn’t left North America.

“It sounds like they were great parents.”

“The best,” Maggie said, her voice soft. She smiled at me, a sad line on her pink lips. Then her eyes glossed over and she went rigid. “Ariella.” Her voice turned eerie. “Your heart will be ripped from your chest, taken to the black abyss, the trip there might claim your life, but to survive what’s coming, you’ll need it.”

She blinked and her eyes went back to normal.

I gawked at her. “What was that?”

“Oh no, what did I say?”

“Something about my heart being ripped from my chest and that I’ll need it to survive.” Who wouldn’t?

“That was a vision-slash-prophecy. Sorry, I can’t tell the difference between them yet.”

“Do your visions-slash-prophecies always come true?” I asked, trying to decipher her ominous words.

She shook her head. “From what my mother told me, our visions are more like possibilities of the future, the most likely to happen if you don’t change anything affecting it at this moment. But if you change something, then the vision is null.”

So, when I figured out what she meant, if it was bad, all I had to do was change something affecting it? That sounded simple enough.

But how would I stop my heart from being ripped from me? That didn’t make sense. If that happened, I would be dead!

“Sorry I’m not much help,” she continued. “Abbie is a great teacher, but she was also learning when our parents died, and she doesn’t know much about my gift.” She let out a long breath. “I would probably know if it was a vision or a prophecy if my mother was still here.”

I pushed that vision-slash-prophecy out of my head. I had enough on my plate as it was. I wouldn’t add ominous and uncertain things to it.

Instead, I reached to the side and patted Maggie’s hand. “I’m sorry you lost your parents so young.” I knew the feeling. I had lost my father when I was at the academy, and in some way, I had lost my mother and my sister five years ago.

She offered me a small smile. “We should go back. We have many books to look through.”

I nodded. “Right.”

This time, following Maggie, it was a straight shot to the library and we were back there in less than five minutes. I swear, this hall either didn’t like me much, or it liked me enough to feel comfortable playing with me.

In the library, the scene hadn’t changed. Abbie was kneeling on a chair, looking over five open books over the table, with more piled high around her. Lacey was on the other side of the table, sorting books, and Gwen was helping for a change, checking the list each of us received.

I glanced around, expecting to see Levi helping.

Lacey looked at me. “He’s not here.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t ask anything.”

“But I can see it in your eyes,” she said, sounding almost mad.

“All right, where did he go, then?” I should find him and tell him that unfortunately my magic was more important than this crazy bond, but we would break it soon.

I promised.

Again.

“He’s not here,” she repeated. “He got a call and had to leave.”

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